It was also because Max seemed not only to have patience with my many neuroses but most of the time he thought they were cute.

It was because he knew how I took my coffee, he held my hand, he kissed my forehead and he draped his arm along the back of the booth when we were sitting together.

It was Max telling Mindy she was loved; she just didn’t get how much.

It was because he was a good kisser and better in bed.

It was because he held me when we slept, like right then, his arm under my body, wrapped around me, holding me to his side as if, even in sleep, he had no intention of ever letting me go.

Even with all that, I knew I would never be the love of Max’s life. I knew someplace deep he’d already had that and in that deep place it also hurt knowing I’d never be that for him. If it worked out with us, I wouldn’t ever be the love of anyone’s life. But that wasn’t what bothered me. It was that I wouldn’t be that person for Max. Especially Max.

But I also knew it had taken him ten years to find someone he’d like to explore sharing his life with again. And he’d made it clear that someone was me.

So I would never be what Mom was to Steve.

But being Max’s second chance at something good was better than anything else I’d ever experienced. Nothing else even came close.

If I gave it a chance it would be settling, definitely.

But I decided, pressed to Max’s side, in his bed, in his A-Frame in the Colorado Mountains, after living the craziest week of my life and going through what we went through yesterday and still waking feeling rested and safe, I could settle for that.

Sweetheart, you’re selling yourself short, Charlie warned in my head.

Go away, I replied and shifted up, my decision made which might be stupid, insane and irrational, but I no longer had it in me to care. I put my mouth to Max’s amazing chest and I trailed it down to his nipple. Once there, I flicked it with my tongue.

Max’s fingers slid in my hair and I heard a drowsy-husky-gravelly, “Honey.”

I’d forgotten about that so I added it to my list. It was also the fact that Max called me “honey”, “baby”, “darlin’” and “babe”.

Not to mention his gravelly voice.

I didn’t lift my head when I heard him speak, just moved over him, straddling his body and adding my hands to my discovery.

I took my time and Max let me. Over to his other nipple where I played then down where I ran the tip of my tongue along the ridges of his belly. All the while my fingers moved along the contours of his chest, his sides then down to his hips.

I moved down too, my body and my mouth. He opened his legs for me and I positioned myself between them, curling small, I wrapped my hand around his hard shaft and swirled the silky tip with my tongue.

“Fuck, baby,” Max groaned, his fingers sliding back into my hair and fisting.

Encouraged, I swirled and swirled and swirled then opened my mouth over him and sucked him inside, as much as I could take and I liked every inch I could get.

Max’s fist twisted in my hair and he growled, “Fuck.”

I was guessing he liked it too.

Taking him deep, I decided I liked more than the taste of him, the feel of him in my mouth. I liked knowing how much he liked it so I slid him out and sucked him back in again and again and again.

Max’s other hand went into my hair and suddenly, when I slid him out, his hips surged up, filling my mouth so full, I nearly took all of him. Then he pulled out and surged back in again and again and again.

It was Max taking over, as usual, Max being domineering and it was delicious.

So delicious, I felt the tightness and wet of excitement gathering between my legs and I moaned against his shaft.

When I did, he pulled out of my mouth, his hands left my hair, they went under my arms and I was yanked up and over him. I didn’t get the chance to process this quick change of circumstances, he knifed to sitting and then before I knew it my t-shirt was gone. Then he rolled me to my back on the bed and my underwear was gone. Then he somehow maneuvered me so I was straddling his face but was facing his hips.

“Wrap your mouth back around me, Duchess,” he growled from between my legs before I had time to come to terms with my position which under normal circumstances this early in a sexual relationship might be a little daunting. But I felt the vibration of his words between my legs and I liked it a lot, enough to forget to feel daunted.

I leaned down and did what I was told. The instant I did, Max’s hands went to my bottom, he pulled me down to his mouth, my knees slid out to the sides and he returned the favor and the very idea of daunted was history.

It was spectacular, so spectacular it took every bit of concentration to keep giving him what I knew he liked when he was giving me what I absolutely adored. He groaned against my sweet spot, I moaned against his cock. It was taking and it was giving and it was sublime.

I was close to climax, I knew it, I wanted it and I worked him faster because of it.

He lifted me up and half-rolled, half-tossed me to the side. Then he opened the nightstand drawer and grabbed a condom. Once he turned back to me, he wrapped a hand around my ankle and I gasped with surprise and excitement as he dragged me, spread-eagled between his knees in the bed.

I sat up as he pulled the condom out of its wrapper and tossed the packet aside.

“Hurry,” I whispered, my hands moving on his body as he began to roll it on.

“You’ll get my cock, baby, lie back,” Max’s voice was hoarse and his eyes were not on his task, they were on me.

I waited and dropped my head to watch his hand at work. He really was beautiful everywhere.

It had only been a second but I decided he was taking too long.

“Max, hurry.”

“Lie back, Duchess,” Max growled. “I wanna see you naked, spread on my bed.”

My gaze went from what his hand was doing to his face. I caught his beautiful but hungry gray eyes and I sucked in breath.

Normally I was uncertain how I felt about my body and didn’t give it much thought. Though I was certain I didn’t like flaunting it naked.

At that hungry look in Max’s eyes, I forgot I didn’t like flaunting.

So I whispered, “Okay,” and laid back.

He leaned into me, one hand in the bed, one hand wrapped around his shaft. Then he slid the tip though the wetness between my legs, all the while his eyes roamed my face and down my body.

“Come closer,” I urged.

“In a second.”

He kept sliding his cock against me, rolling it over my sweet spot and all around, making me tremble and shift with impatience, my hands going anywhere on his body I could reach.

“Come inside,” I begged, bending my knees and putting my feet in the bed to get closer to him while capturing his hips and giving them a tug.

“In a second, baby.”

“Now, Max.”

“I like that,” he gritted, his head was bent, watching what he was doing then it lifted and his gaze locked on mine. “Beautiful.”

He was right, so very right. I still wanted him inside.

The tip of his shaft rolled over my ultra-sensitized sweet spot again, the feel of it shot straight through me, it felt great but it wasn’t near enough and I lost patience.

“Max!”

I watched as he grinned slow and slid inside slower. My neck arched back.

Max’s body covered mine and his hips moved in a slow, sweet rhythm while he wrapped my good leg around his back and I wrapped my bad leg around his thigh.

His mouth came to mine but he didn’t kiss me, instead he murmured, “So sweet, Nina, Christ, you feel so fuckin’ sweet.”

One of my hands trailed his back, my fingernails grazing as the fingers of my other hand slid into his hair.

“I need you to go faster, darling,” I whispered against his mouth but he shook his head and pulled out, stilling with only the tip inside. “Max,” I breathed, wanting him back.

“You like my cock,” he stated somewhat arrogantly and after he did his teeth nipped my lower lip which felt wicked and sexy so I decided to forgive him for being arrogant.

“Yes,” I replied, “I like all of you but right now that’s my favorite part and I want it back.”

I was concentrating on what was happening between my legs so I missed Max’s body going tense.

Then he asked, “You like all of me?”

I was in such a state, I didn’t think before I replied, “Yes.”

He slid inside, my eyes slowly closed then he slid back out so I only felt the tip and my eyes slowly opened.

“Max.”

“What do you like best?”

My attention was elsewhere so I had to ask, “What?”

“What do you like best? About me.”

“Max.”

“You want it, Nina, you gotta –”

“You know how I take my coffee,” I said swiftly and when his body didn’t move, indeed, when he stared at me like I’d grown a second head, I desperately went on. “And you bought me buffalo burgers, you call me ‘honey’, you kiss my forehead, you took me to your bluff and the ring is beautiful and thoughtful and may be the best gift anyone’s ever given me, now, please –”

He didn’t let me finish, he drove inside and he kept doing it, not a slow, sweet rhythm this time, but fast, hard, rough with his mouth locked to mine and our tongues clashing.

My legs tightened and my fingernails stopped grazing and started digging as it built back up and then, without warning, overwhelmed me.

“You’re there, baby,” he muttered against my mouth and he was right, I was there, my lips parted in a silent moan and I heard him go on. “Christ, Nina, your pussy feels so fuckin’ beautiful when you come.”